Denver beauty-tech startup Pomp aims to bring personalized skin care from licensed estheticians to the masses and it raised a $3.3 million seed II round to further its mission.
Pomp launched in March 2020 during the peak of the pandemic as a direct-to-consumer skincare platform. Customers take an online skin survey and receive feedback and recommended products from licensed estheticians. These products can be purchased on Pomp’s website and are shipped directly to the consumer.
While this direct-to-consumer service makes up 10% of the company’s operation, it shifted a majority of its focus to a business-to-business model in 2021 called Pomp Professional. This SaaS offering allows estheticians to message their clients and consult with them virtually. It also offers skin care professionals access to a resource center, digital assets and Pomp’s medical director Dr. Ritvik Mehta, who is a triple board-certified facial plastic surgeon and founder of cosmetic practice Blue Illusion Beauty.
Pomp’s $3.3 million seed II round quietly closed in mid-April and was co-led by Long Journey Ventures and Cassius. Angel investors Casey Winters, the former chief product officer at Eventbrite, and Kevin Kwok, a previous investor at Greylock Partners, also participated in the round.
Prior to this round, Pomp secured a $1.5 million round in 2021.
Pomp CEO and co-founder Shannon Erley said the startup sought additional capital because it needed more to grow.
"Quite honestly, we were running out of our capital before,” she said. “We kind of had to [raise more capital] from a need versus a want. ... We were starting to see really good signs of product market fit. We were growing.”
The fresh seed II capital will be used to grow Pomp Professional and bring more skin care professionals to the platform.
Pomp is currently used by 600 U.S.-based skin care professionals, each bringing 20 to 200 users to the platform. Erley said she expects to have 2,000 to 3,000 experts on the platform by the end of the year.
Erley is a first-time founder but has more than 10 years of experience in the beauty industry working on the brand and e-commerce side of things. She attributes her success with Pomp to surrounding herself with support, including an executive coach and her co-founder Nicole Cox. Similar to Erley, Cox, who also serves as Pomp’s chief operating officer, has vast experience in the beauty industry having worked for The Estée Lauder Companies, Sak Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales.
Another aspect of Pomp’s success is Erley and Cox’s willingness to pivot to fit consumers' needs.
“I would say 80-90% of our product roadmap and brand partnerships, everything is really dictated by our users,” Erley said. “We have this overarching vision of what we want to do but ultimately, we're not going to create something or partner with a brand if our users don't want it. And so we're just really fluid and flexible in that sense.”
Pomp, which was named by Colorado Inno as a startup to watch in 2022, has raised $5.7 million to date and plans to raise its Series A round in the next nine to 12 months. Erley said the company’s headcount of 14 full-time employees won’t grow until the Series A round closes.
